Unsealed From Time
by The Cat's Paw
Summary: After taking out yet another ROOT attempt on his eye, ANBU Kakashi is forced to face his demons when an active time travelling scroll brings his team through from the past. No pairings.
1. Chapter 1

**New story! Honestly, I just can't help it. I write whatever pops into my head, even if I really should be focusing on other, already posted, stories. :P**

 **A notice! Sometime in the new year, I'll be changing my pen name. Both here and on AO3.**

 **In any case, this is a time travel fic, naturally. Kakashi here's about 23-24, not long before the Hokage would kick him out of ANBU and make him take a gennin team. Which he failed, of course. Past Minato will be 21, with Kakashi, Obito, and Rin at 11. Well, actually I might have Obito 12 already. My head cannon is that Minato is ten years older than Kakashi. Obito's birthday is first, then Kakashi's, then Rin's, so to me, she's the youngest. Call it influence of growing up in the southern hemisphere, with school starting in Jan-Feb, and finishing in Dec.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoy this, and remember that I don't own the Naruto-verse!**

 _ **Unsealed From Time**_

 **Chapter One**

The scroll was… well, in a word… _interesting_. For someone with over a thousand jutsu in their inventory (according to the bingo books) that was quite the thing to say. Hatake Kakashi sat perched atop a small boulder, blatantly ignoring all the corpses around him as he examined the scroll with his sharingan eye exposed. What to do, what to do?

Of course, he really should just take it back to the village. Let them have a look at it, study it, find out what makes it tick. And surely, if the scroll had been the objective of the mission, he wouldn't hesitate to do so. The active state of the scroll, as well as the nature of its contents, was giving him pause.

The mission that he'd been sent out on was an assassination mission. Not the ones currently dead around him. _Those_ were the ROOT that Danzou had sent in an attempt to get Kakashi's eye. (The shady, old councillor made an attempt once in awhile, despite the Hokage's orders not to. It was kind of a tradition now; Danzou would send a squad out after him on one of his solo's, Kakashi would send them back in pieces…)

No, this scroll had been on one of the ROOT. Kakashi figured they'd had their own little side adventure before encountering him, and this was a spoil from that. No doubt, Danzou would have been _extremely_ happy to get his hands on this, especially if what Kakashi was reading was _actually_ true. It boggled the mind, the idea laid out in this scroll.

But had the agent activated this on purpose, or accidentally?

It was a complex series of seals, each set out carefully, with all kinds of fail safes in place. The slightest mistake, and this could blow up in the user's face. _Literally_. Everything in Kakashi was telling him not to use it, that it was a _bad_ idea. Well, _almost_ everything. There was that little bit, that curious part of him, that wondered what would happen if he _did_ use it…

The scroll would apparently open a portal. Not to another dimension, though, but another time. The concept of time travel, which was what this basically was, wasn't unheard of. Both in theory and in practice, though the practice was usually in _accidental_ circumstances. Though Kakashi himself had never experienced time travel, his position as an ANBU captain gave him access to all _sorts_ of classified information, and he'd read a couple of interesting files where time travel had been documented.

Of course, if he hadn't seen those files, he'd likely be sceptical about the scroll.

Activating the scroll apparently wasn't easy, a fact that lent credence to its activation being deliberate. It required a _lot_ of chakra, for one, and some kind of sacrifice. Glancing around at the carnage around him, Kakashi knew that the conditions had been met, because he'd noticed the scroll gathering the chakra of each ROOT member that he'd killed, as he'd killed him. In fact, that was why he'd searched the bodies, instead of immediately disposing of them (and then the scroll, by proxy) once he was done.

He really should just seal the scroll away into another, take it back to the village for proper study. The only thing was, he was a little concerned that it might just set the scroll off anyway. The activation kanji was already aglow with chakra, just waiting for something to set it off. Kakashi sighed, then pulled out a sealing scroll, hopping down off the boulder. He couldn't spend all day just staring at the thing, he needed to get back to the village.

Laying the sealing scroll out, Kakashi carefully placed other scroll on it, then stepped back. Biting his thumb, he summoned Pakkun to him.

"Yo, Boss," Pakkun greeted him, then noticed the scrolls. "What's with the paper?"

"Pakkun, I need you to take a message to the Hokage," Kakashi said. "I need you to tell him that I've come across an active time travel scroll. Tell him I'll attempt to seal it in a storage scroll, as per regulations. But the fact that it's active… Well, I could end up accidentally fully activating the sealing jutsu on here. I need you to get him to send a team out to meet me, just in case."

"Will you be alright on your own, Boss?" Pakkun asked, eyeing the scrolls warily now. "Looks like you've already had some action… Hey! Are those ROOT? _Again_?!"

"I'll be fine," Kakashi promised. "I still have plenty of chakra, as well as some replenishing pills just in case, and I'll wait an hour before I activate it."

"Alright," Pakkun said reluctantly. "Though I'd feel better if you'd at least summon the rest of the pack. Just in case."

"I will if I need to," Kakashi promised. "Now go."

With one last glance at his summoner, Pakkun took off. Kakashi gave enough time for his ninken to be a good distance away, the village was two or so hours away for him, much less for Pakkun. He used that time to gather up all the ROOT and dispose of them off to the side. Once that was done, he returned to the scrolls and, keeping a bit of a distance, activated the sealing scroll. As he feared, the other scroll didn't react well, and it seemed to almost _swallow_ up the sealing scroll.

Kakashi jumped back, pulling his ANBU mask back down and readying himself. He had no idea who or what was going to come out of the scroll. Just who had the scroll registered at the user, himself, or the ROOT that had started feeding it the chakra to activate it? He pulled out his kunai, readying himself.

Bolts of what seemed like electricity (though to the sharingan, they were bolts of yin chakra) shot out all around, and Kakashi had to dodge to avoid them. Finally, the portal opened, and four figures appeared. The yin chakra went crazy, shattering the portal, leaving behind four people standing right there in front of him. Kakashi forced himself to stay calm and still as he regarded them.

One of them was a man of similar age to himself, with blond hair and blue eyes, a jounin. The other three were pre-teen gennin, one an Uchiha, one a brunette from small clan, and the other a perfect miniature version of himself. All of them stared around in confusion, kunai's drawn. Naturally, the jounin was the first to notice him.

"Who are you?" he demanded, then as the smoke from the yin chakra cleared, noted his ANBU attire. "What is going on?"

'Welp, this was going to take some explaining,' Kakashi thought.

 **So what did you think? Review please!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hiya! New chapter! :) This is the first update I've posted since changing my pen name. (starting a new fic doesn't count)**

 **So anyway, I've changed my mind on something. Kakashi isn't 23-24. Instead he's 19. I did this because I decided to make it pre-massacre instead. :)**

 **In any case, disclaimer and enjoy, folks!**

 **Chapter Two**

This is not where they were before.

Team Minato had been sent out on a scouting mission close to the border of Kusa, where the geography mostly consisted of sparse woods and knee- high grass. Now, they were in the midst of a full on forest, where the grass barely inched over their sandals, and the light level had fallen due to the canopy above. The scene in front of them had changed to become a blood splattered clearing, filled with the acrid scent of chakra based smoke and the metallic tang of blood.

Before them stood a shinobi in Konoha ANBU gear, kunai in hand and on guard. Though the kunai was lowered, Minato remained on guard as well.

"What is going on?" he repeated the question he'd asked when they'd first ended up here.

"State your names, rank, and registration numbers," the ANBU said in an authoritative tone.

"Er, Namikaze Minato, jounin, 006510," Minato said, then gave his team a 'look', and they also complied.

"Are you going to answer sensei's question now, ANBU-san?" Rin asked. "Do you know what's going on?"

The ANBU simply stared at her a moment, then shifted his gaze and spoke directly to Minato. "The answers are in the scroll at your feet, Namikaze-san," he said. "Don't worry, it's inert now, so it should be safe to handle."

 _Should be_? Minato glanced down at his feet and saw that there was indeed a scroll there. Carefully, he picked it up, scanning the contents of the scroll, eyes going wide as he read. Something like this… Surely it wasn't…?

"This is… _how_ is this possible?" he asked, mostly to himself, not focusing much on the ANBU before him as his mind swirled chaotically with the possibilities.

What he held in his hands was a _time travel scroll_! His eyes tore over the kanji, his mind whirling as he processed it. According to this, he and his team had travelled through time! But were they in the past, or future? Nothing he read was concrete in indicating either way, though it hinted this was the future. Couldn't be certain, because of how abstract it was. But then he spotted the portion that mentioned 'sacrifice', connecting it with all the blood around, and he swallowed a little unease.

"How was this activated?" he demanded, rolling the scroll back up and looking dead at where he guessed the ANBU's eyes were behind that mask of his.

"The scroll was in the possession of an enemy nin," the ANBU said. "He likely activated it before we started fighting, and as he and his comrades fell, the scroll sucked up their chakra. After that, I attempted to see if I could seal it into a storage scroll, as per regulations, only for the scroll to completely activate, bringing the four of you here."

Minato regarded the ANBU thoughtfully. "The scroll mentioned that it would bring someone close to the person who activates it," he said, remembering that bit. "At least one of us knows you, correct?"

The ANBU gave a short nod.

"What is going on?" Obito suddenly asked. "Sensei, what's in that scroll? How come we're not near Kusa anymore? Who is this guy? Why are we just _standing around_?"

Kakashi whacked Obito hard over the head, ignoring the boy's yelp of pain and subsequent glare aimed at him. "Moron," he said. "He's ANBU, can't you tell?"

"Stop it, both of you," Minato ordered before the two of them could get into one of their little spats, and he sighed. "It seems the four of us have travelled in time. Forward or backwards?"

That last bit he directed to the ANBU, who answered the way Minato suspected he would, "Forwards. About nine or ten years, I'd guess. Probably seven, by the looks of you."

"You'd _guess_?" Obito asked. "How come you don't know?"

The ANBU regarded him calmly. "Well, how old are you all then?" he asked. "Eleven? _T_ _en_? Going by that presumption, if you three are ten or eleven, then it's been eight years minimum, and a decade or so at the maximum."

"Time travel isn't possible," Kakashi spoke up. "It _isn't_. So what's really going on?"

"Kakashi!" Minato chastised.

"It's fine," the ANBU said. "He's only chuunin, after all. You don't get briefed on this kind of thing unless you're ANBU or the Hokage."

Kakashi looked chagrined at being called _only_ a chuunin. "The scent of the blood is at least an hour old," he said. "You waited before activating the jutsu."

"…I gave enough time for my summon to reach Konoha, in case hostiles came through, and for reinforcements to be sent out," the ANBU said, looking Kakashi dead on.

The boy scoffed at the insinuation, but didn't respond. Minato turned back to the ANBU.

"How long will your backup be, then?" he asked.

"A little under an hour," the ANBU spoke. "Depending on who they send, and how fast they travel."

"You were so sure you'd be able to handle whoever came through?" Obito asked, a little disbelief in his voice. "Since you'd have to wait an hour. What if they'd _really_ been enemies, and there'd been a ton?"

Minato had a feeling that their ANBU friend still would have been able to handle it, but he looked towards him, curious as to what he would say.

"If I couldn't handle it, I'd follow protocol and retreat until the backup _did_ arrive. Besides, I do also have access to some extra backup that wouldn't take as long."

"More summons?" Minato guessed, and the ANBU nodded.

Suddenly Kakashi stiffened, and after a moment, the ANBU looked on guard as well. Rin and Obito looked confused, and Minato was as well, but after a moment, he realised. Someone was coming. But that someone wasn't human, he could tell. So, was this the ANBU's summons, headed back? They were close, close enough that Kakashi had likely caught a whiff of their scent, and that was why he'd stiffened. Or so Minato thought…

"Who are you?" Kakashi demanded of the ANBU. "Why do I smell Pakkun coming?"

"Pakkun?" Rin spoke. "Your summon? Why would he…?"

And it seemed to dawn on all of them right then, just who it was in front of them. Rin looked a bit terrified, likely _for_ Kakashi, and everything that thought entailed. Obito looked like he was torn between chagrin and reluctant respect for his team mate. Kakashi himself looked like he was also torn, between pride and just a hint of worry. Minato himself was filled with concern as well.

Right then, Kakashi's summon Pakkun leapt into the clearing, landing at the ANBU's feet. "So this is who the scroll brought," he said in that ever gruff voice of his. "You doing okay, Boss?"

Minato looked over to the ANBU and asked, "Kakashi? Is that really you?"

The ANBU let out a sigh, pushing up his porcelain mask to the side and top of his head. "Yes, sensei," he said. "It's me."

 **So what did you think? Review please! :)**


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